


Render

by Decipher (Straggler)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Androids can deviate freely without consequence, Creepy behavior from Zlatko, Gen, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, No revolution and everything's chill, North takes over as the resident potty-mouth, Recovery, Stress/Anxiety, but no details given
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straggler/pseuds/Decipher
Summary: 'Hello Connor.'He feels his mood take a dive but he turns to the speaker and tries to smile politely, 'Hello Zlatko,' he greets back, feeling uncomfortable by the intensity of the man's gaze on his face and on his chest. He feels exposed and tries to angle his body away, to continue his way towards the staff cafeteria. 'I'm just heading to lunch, don't mind me.''With Markus, Kara and the others?' Zlatko asks as he somehow falls into step next to him, the sleeves of his lab coat brushing against Connor's dress shirt.He subtly takes a half step away even as he nods, 'Yes,' and doesn't offer more.(This story was written in a universe where most of the main cast are humans and working within CyberLife as technicians. Connor gets singled out by Zlatko with some unwanted attention that he eventually puts a stop to and for a while everything goes back to normal. One day he's called up to the head office and there, he meets the android that looks exactly like him.)
Relationships: Connor & Josh & Markus & North & Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & Kara (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Original Chloe | RT600 & Connor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, this was a tad difficult to write because HOOMINS?! 
> 
> I think I got North's volatile nature down pat, though. HAHAHAHAHA~
> 
> Anyway, I'm trying something a little different this story. Not quite sure where I'm going with it just yet but I do have a pretty decent idea. I have a draft written up but, you know, sometimes things happen that I don't expect and it turns out different from what I originally anticipated. Whether or not it's GOOD is up for debate.
> 
> In any case, enjoy!

  
'Hello Connor.'

He feels his mood take a dive but he turns to the speaker and tries to smile politely, 'Hello Zlatko,' he greets back, feeling uncomfortable by the intensity of the man's gaze on his face and on his chest. He feels exposed and tries to angle his body away, to continue his way towards the staff cafeteria. 'I'm just heading to lunch, don't mind me.'

'With Markus, Kara and the others?' Zlatko asks as he somehow falls into step next to him, the sleeves of his lab coat brushing against Connor's dress shirt.

He subtly takes a half step away even as he nods, 'Yes,' and doesn't offer more.

'Why don't you sit with me instead? I'm sure we'll share a good conversation together. You're working on one of the RK series, aren't you?'

'Yes, I am,' he says, choosing to ignore the first question as he reaches the open doorway leading into the cafeteria. He starts looking around for his co-workers and immediately spots them, sees the way both Markus and Kara sit up straighter at the sight of him entering the area with Zlatko, at Markus' pursed lips and the worried furrow between Kara's eyebrows. He turns his attention briefly back to the man next to him and aims a polite smile his way, 'Have a good day, Zlatko. Good luck on your projects.'

'Thank you, Connor. I hope we'll spend more time together in the future,' Zlatko smiles back and, thankfully, walks away.

Connor lets out a slow, quiet breath and loosens the tension in his shoulders as he approaches the others and sits down at the table.

'Are you okay?' Markus immediately asks.

'Yes, I'm fine,' he answers as he puts his home-packed lunch on the table but finds that he no longer has the appetite to eat it.

'I can't believe you're still putting up with that piece of sh--'

'North.'

' _Simon_ ,' she retorts, 'You realize this is unprofessional and unwarranted behavior from that jackass, don't you? Especially after what happened with Markus and--'

' _North_.'

She huffs noisily but relents, spearing at the crispy noodle salad with her fork and stabbing it repeatedly until the leafy vegetables are bruised and full of holes, the noodles nothing but flaky pieces.

'She's right,' Kara starts to say, her voice soft and full of concern. 'I understand being polite to your colleagues but...what he's doing, what he's _done_ , has come too close to crossing the line.'

He gets where their concern is coming from. He knows that Markus and Kara went through the exact same thing he did before Zlatko lost interest in them and started making advancements towards him instead. He doesn't understand what the man is trying to achieve, especially after Connor has politely turned him down and refused his attentions repeatedly over the course of several months since he started working here.

Still, he keeps hoping the same thing will happen to him, that Zlatko will eventually realize he's not very interesting at all and just find someone else to pursue.

He sighs quietly as he opens up his food container and starts shoving around the potato salad with a spoon. 'I'll deal with it.'

It's quiet around him and he doesn't have to look up to know the others are sharing looks with each other. It's not long before Markus tells him, 'Be careful, Connor.'

\---

Even if he wanted to report Zlatko to HR, he's only been employed at CyberLife for barely eight months whereas the older man has been around for several years as one of their senior technicians. That alone puts Zlatko at a higher position as someone who holds a lot more value to the company than someone like Connor who isn't even past his first year of employment. It bothers him, and some days the thought of going to work and crossing paths with him stresses him out.

The building is large with several floors above and below ground, as well as a sizable campus that leads into different departments. Still, one way or another, Zlatko would somehow manage to find where Connor is and spend time with him.

He feels sweat prickling across the back of his neck, his face heating up from the unwanted attention even as he politely declines another invitation from the other man to join him at his table for lunch.

Connor bids him farewell and good luck before walking away, feeling eyes staring at him, following his back, shivers crawling on his skin and he forces himself to walk normally even though he feels the urge to hurry and run out of sight, out of mind.

Markus and Kara always check to make sure he's alright after his encounters with Zlatko while North verbally bashes the man's name, open in her disdain for him and always pushing Connor to stand his ground and not let himself get walked all over.

'You keep fucking tiptoeing around it and you keep throwing hints that you're not interested but you should just straight up tell him to _fuck off_.'

' _North_ , inside voice, please. How many times do I have to tell you.'

'Shut up, Simon,' she elbows him but she lowers her voice anyway. 'Don't let him walk all over you, Connor. Nobody deserves this shit.'

He just wants to eat his lunch and go back to work and not have to think about making a complaint to HR or talk about Zlatko. He knows North means well, fierce in her loyalty for her friends and the people she cares about, but sometimes it gets to be too much, too overbearing, too suffocating. He knows it's how she shows she cares but he's not the same as her; he's not the type to fight back.

'Alright, that's enough,' Markus cuts in before North can start on another rant.

He looks up from staring a hole at his lunch, grateful for the assist.

'You guys have any plans for the weekend?' Kara asks, happy to change the subject for them and he can't help but feel grateful to her, too.

Josh latches onto the subject change easily, all too glad to talk about anything else.

They fall into discussion about what they're each doing on their coming days off. Markus does what he does every weekend; painting with his dad while holding philosophical discussions about life and death and everything in between. Kara is going to an orchard with her husband and daughter for some fruit picking and jam making. Josh and Simon both spend their weekends teaching at the community college and doing volunteer work while North holds a second casual job as a personal trainer at a gym nearby her apartment.

When it comes to his turn to talk about his plans for the weekend he usually defaults to, 'Nothing much,' which sounds sad but it's how he likes to spend his weekends; just staying in his apartment with no other plans except to relax and just _breathe_.

\---

He hits his limit; he's had enough and it's been _months_. Months of saying no, of declining every offer, of refusing every advance, of rejecting his invitations but either Zlatko doesn't get it, or thinks Connor's just playing hard to get and likes the thrill of the chase when it's anything but.

'Connor, you can't keep doing this to yourself.'

He looks up at Kara and sees the tears welling up in her eyes even though her eyebrows are furrowed in a fierce frown, her voice taking on a firmer tone.

Even North is surprisingly subdued although she looks like she's just one step away from snapping and going on another rant about Zlatko, just waiting for an opportunity to rain down her wrath upon him.

He draws in a breath and tries to loosen his neck and shoulders; they've been aching for days from the constant way he's been slouching over trying to turn himself into a smaller, unobtrusive shape.

'I can come with you if you need the support,' Kara offers as he drops his gaze back to his beef stir-fry, pushing it around with a fork and not really eating it.

Eventually, he nods, 'Alright.'

'We can go now, or later if you want?'

He drops his fork down and stands up; he's not hungry anyway. 'Now is good.'

He and Kara leave the cafeteria together but he's surprised to see Markus as well when he gets to the HR office, just as he's got one hand raised to knock on the door.

'...Markus?'

There's a determined look in his eyes as he lays a supportive hand on Connor's shoulder and squeezes once. 'You're not alone, Connor.'

He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, then brings his hand down onto the door.

\---

He knows he did the right thing. Markus and Kara both confided in him afterwards that Zlatko also did the same thing with them before they went to HR about it.

'He was really polite at first,' Kara tells him, fidgeting with her nails. 'He was very welcoming and he offered to show me around the place when I first started. Gave me a lot of good advice,' Markus nods from where he's sitting beside her, his eyebrows pinched. 'But after a while it's stopped being friendly and started being...'

She trails off and her eyes are wide, unseeing, just staring at nothing in particular. She quietly snaps out of it when Markus lays a comforting hand on top of hers, stilling her fingers from where she'd started picking at her nails.

'He started making me feel like I owed him.'

An uncomfortable silence falls over them as they relive through their own memories and their own encounters with Zlatko. Privately, Connor's glad he never progressed that far; Zlatko had always given him this quiet sense of uneasiness even though the man had been nothing but friendly, but he supposes there is a thing as being _too_ friendly.

'It was different with me,' Markus says after a while, interlocking his fingers and gently rubbing a thumb over a knuckle. 'I got switched over from my department over to Zlatko's to help with a project that had a deadline coming up quick and they needed a couple of extra hands. I put in a lot of late nights and lot of overtime to make sure we could make it and I guess I somehow got his attention. He started staying late with me as well and...we started talking.'

'Philosophy?' Connor quietly teases and it gets a smile out of Markus.

'Yeah, but...' his smile slowly drops off his face, 'It became obvious to me after a while that his sense of philosophy was...skewed. It was interesting to debate about it from different points of views but...it stopped being interesting when he started trying to tell me everything I knew was wrong. He tried to help bring me out of it, as if I was stuck and needed help getting out of my way of thinking,' he shakes his head and looks up to meet his gaze. 'Anyway, I put a stop to it.'

'Thank you for telling me,' he says, trying to accept their words and the comfort of knowing that he wasn't the only victim.

He knows he did the right thing by filing a harassment case against Zlatko but it doesn't stop the worry from gnawing away at him, the stress picking at him, slowly building up.

There's a good chance that HR won't take it all that seriously since Zlatko is a senior technician, one of the best within the company; a valuable asset. The most they'll probably do is give the man a slap on the wrist and tell him not to do it again, to leave Connor alone like they told him to leave Kara and Markus alone, but it won't break the cycle.

Suddenly he wonders if he made things worse for himself by telling HR, if he might've lost his job here at CyberLife. Between a technician who's just started here versus a man who has seniority amongst the staff here it makes sense to get rid of the one lacking experience.

That night, once he gets back to his apartment, he starts updating his CV in case he needs to start looking for another job as soon as possible, then spends the next hour carefully tending to his plants, trying to wind down from a stressful day.

\---

He feels tense whenever he arrives at CyberLife but it becomes obvious after a few days that Zlatko is keeping his distance with him now. He hasn't seen the man since last week just before his meeting with HR and he guesses Zlatko's been told not to approach him anymore, same as what happened with Kara as well as Markus.

He breathes a sigh of relief that he no longer has to deal with Zlatko even though there's still an underlying current of worry that still niggles at him. Despite this, he tries not to show that he's quietly worried about his job security.

His friends notice the small change in his mood, North poking fun at the genuine smile on his face saying she hasn't seen it in a long time. They all smile, happy to be rid of one less problem to deal with.

Eventually, after some weeks, he hears from the work grapevine that Zlatko's been let go from CyberLife and the news prompts a feeling of guilt and worry to well up inside of him.

'Are you fucking kidding me?' North hisses at him, 'He deserves to be fired for thinking he can pull that kinda shit, _especially_ when he's done it repeatedly with several people, three of whom are sitting _right here_.'

He gets it. He _does_ so he tries to bury that guilt and push it aside; it's not his problem and it's not his fault that some people just won't learn from their mistakes no matter how many warnings they get, thinking they're above it all just because they have seniority over their co-workers.

'Honestly?' Josh huffs as he unwraps his sandwich, 'Good riddance.'

Connor raises his eyebrows at him, surprised by his tone considering he's always advocated for giving people second chances, but he supposes Zlatko's wasted his second and third chance already, maybe even more than that.

'It's a shame,' Simon starts and has to hold up a hand before North starts ripping into him about it, 'He's a genius in his own right and I think he could've done a lot of good things with his innovations if he really put his mind to it, but it doesn't give him the right to behave the way he did or treat people like a commodity. It's a shame but I'm not sorry to see him gone.'

North nods, appeased. 'Like Josh said; good fucking riddance.'

'I definitely didn't throw in the F word like you did.'

'You were thinking it.'

He purses his lips but shrugs anyway, 'Yeah, I was.'

They laugh and it felt like that was the end of it.

\---

He's trying to do some troubleshooting on some coding errors when he gets a summon in the form of Chloe: Elijah Kamski's personal assistant, the first android ever created. He sits up at the sight of her standing just inside the door of his lab, her blue eyes looking around the space curiously before turning her attention towards him.

'Connor Arkay, your presence has been requested for a meeting,' she says as she folds her hands in front of her, watching him.

He stares at her; he's never seen her up close before and he's overcome by a feeling of awe from actually seeing her in person. If it weren't for the LED on her temple, he would've just assumed she was another human. 'May I ask what it's about?' He asks, snapping himself out of his obvious gaping of her.

'The subject in question is of a sensitive matter; it would be best for you to hear it personally rather than through me.'

He blinks, 'Oh, I see. One second, please,' he says as he quickly saves his work and lock his work station before standing up to follow after her.

She leads him towards the main building of CyberLife, to the part where he hasn't visited properly since he was first hired almost nine months ago now. They head up the elevators, bypassing the floors where the meeting rooms are held, going almost all the way to the top where he's never set foot in before.

He knew who he'd be seeing, considering that it's Chloe that came by to pick him up, but he's still surprised to see Elijah Kamski sitting at the head of the table, surrounded by a few other people he doesn't recognize.

'Ah,' a man with medium-length greying hair says as soon as he walks into the room. 'I see.'

Connor blinks, uncertain as to what's going on as he looks around the room, to the four people sitting at the table. He starts a little when he sees a man that looks almost exactly like him, like a twin he never knew he had, until he spots the LED on their temple, circling yellow, their brown eyes focused on him for a few brief seconds before dropping down to stare at the table instead.

'What's...going on?' He asks, turning his head towards Elijah Kamski although it takes him a while longer to fully drag his eyes away from the android that looks like him to stare at the CEO of CyberLife.

'Why don't you have a seat, son,' the man with the grey hair says as he gestures to one of the empty chairs. 'We've got a lot to talk about.'

He doesn't move for several seconds and he startles when he feels a gentle hand on his arm and looks over to see Chloe, her brows furrowed in concern. He gapes a little bit at her again, unsure what to think, but he lets himself be herded to a chair. He's surprised but comforted when she sits down next to him, quietly offering support that he didn't know he needed.

'My name's Hank Anderson. I'm a Lieutenant with the Detroit Police Department,' the man introduces himself and then gestures over to another man sitting next to him with messy but trimmed dark hair, a rough stubble and a scar across the bridge of his nose, 'This is my colleague, Detective Gavin Reed.'

The detective nods once in greeting before speaking.

Connor listens.

He listens to them talk about how they received a call from a neighbor a few nights ago about a residence out at the edge of town and they arrived to find a man, murdered in his own home by the android that bears Connor's likeness. A team of people went into the home of the deceased Zlatko Andronikov to gather evidence and found a myriad of things that turned their stomachs; other androids who were mutilated and half-disassembled, toyed with and experimented on. There was even evidence of a half-completed, or perhaps half-destroyed, Markus and Kara android as well.

'We wanted you to know in person,' Hank Anderson tells him, eyebrows pinched and sorry, but ultimately jaded by the whole experience. 'Something like this will probably get covered by the media and it was better we told you now rather than have you hearing it from a third party.'

He nods absentmindedly, eyes trained on the table in front of him, still trying to absorb all the information, still trying to come to terms with the fact that Zlatko created an android to look like him. He doesn't know the reason why but he can guess and even just the thought of it makes shivers run up his spine. He feels disgusted and hateful and glad that Zlatko is dead and gone.

Then he remembers about the other androids.

'Do...Do Markus and Kara know, too? You said you--' he voice stops working.

'Both Markus and Kara were informed earlier in the day,' Chloe says softly from where she's sitting next to him, voice gentle as if she doesn't want to startle him again. 'It would be best if you took some personal leave to recover from the news, to mentally recuperate.'

He doesn't know what to say, and it's now that he realizes the other android hasn't uttered a single word or a sound throughout the entire meeting and he can't help but bring his gaze up towards them, sees the way they're looking down at their lap, LED swirling yellow still. They're wearing CyberLife merchandise, a soft white zip-up hooded jacket with the words CyberLife stitched on the right side and the company's trademark blue triangle screen printed above it.

He thinks if he were an android himself, his LED would probably be yellow, too. Maybe even red.

Eventually, the two officers leave the room but not before leaving their cards behind in case he's got any questions he wants to ask them. After a while he notices the other android has stayed behind and Elijah Kamski answers the unasked question, telling him that CyberLife will be taking responsibility for them.

'Seeing as this is a rather...delicate situation. And unusual, as well. It's difficult to know how to proceed when deviancy and laws regarding their sentience is still so new with so much unexplored territory yet to discover.'

Connor wants to feel angry at the man's nonchalance but he can't seem to grasp any other emotion apart than shock. He thinks it'll probably come later when he's in a safer space to process everything that's happened thus far. He finally looks up away from the table to the CEO and sees him observing Connor and he feels exposed, like an experiment laid out on a table to be examined.

'What,' he snaps without meaning to, his emotions fraying at the edges.

If Elijah Kamski is offended in anyway, he chooses not to show it. 'I'm trying to understand Zlatko's fascination towards you that would drive him to create a customized android not just of yourself but also of Markus and Kara.'

'Z--Zl--' he can't say his name, 'He had _no right_ \--'

'No,' Elijah Kamski tells him, and there's an uncharacteristic hint of softness and remorse within his eyes as he speaks, 'But it's too late for regrets, unfortunately.'

He wonders if it would've changed anything if he had gone to HR sooner, or if this was inevitable regardless of what he'd chosen to do. 

He shifts his eyes to the android then back to the CEO, 'What's...what's going to happen to them?'

'They'll remain here until the case is resolved.'

Connor nods, not knowing what else he can do or say.

\---

He blinks out of his thoughts and stares at one of the younger succulents gently held between his fingers and the empty pot it's supposed to go into. He resumes his motion and doesn't know how long he'd been zoning out for, how long he'd just been staring off into space thinking of all the things that have happened, thinking of the android that looks exactly like him.

His breath hitches and his hands shake and he has to pull them away from the plant before he accidentally pats the soil down too hard, suffocating the roots. He knows they're hardier than most plants and can withstand a bit of roughing around but the whole point of this exercise was to _relax_ , not freak out about things that are completely out of his control.

He breathes around the growing anxiety and stares out of the windows of his apartment, at the colors of the setting sun painting the world hues of oranges and reds. It's beautiful and he wishes he could appreciate it more instead of trying to quell the rising panic inside of him, one wheezing breath at a time.

\---

When he sees Markus and Kara again after a couple of days of personal leave, he first sees the dark shadows beneath their eyes and the attempt at trying to smile their problems away, but it cracks. The watery smile falls from Kara's face as tears begin to well up in her eyes and she cries. Markus looks pained and ashamed as he lays a gentle arm across her shoulders and pulls her into a hug so she can hide her face from the world. Connor stands next to them and feels...

Numb.

\---

'Excuse--'

Connor startles hard, his knee knocking into the bottom of his table and the hand holding the mouse jerking a little bit, almost flying out of his light grip. He looks up at the door and sees Chloe, looking apologetic.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you,' she tells him, staying at the threshold of his work room.

He wonders if she can hear his wildly beating heart. He takes in a couple of deep breaths and tries to calm down. 'It's fine; I got caught up with my work. Is...everything alright?' 

'Yes,' she nods, 'We thought you'd might like to know the results regarding--'

'Yes,' he cuts in. He doesn't want to hear that man's name mentioned around him ever again. If he could, he'd blot out that memory of him from his mind forever. 'Please tell me.'

'Due to the evidence gathered the jury ruled in favor of the android, citing self-defense.'

'That's good.' He's glad for them, honestly, and hopes they'll be able to move on to a fresh start, move on to a better life. It's now that he realizes he hasn't really seen the android since that meeting, he's barely thought of them at all and feels guilty that he hasn't inquired about them in the days since. 'Are they okay?'

Chloe frowns, her LED spinning a quick blue before slowing, 'He is functioning well, in a physical sense.'

Connor grimaces, he can read well enough between the lines.

'I've tried to engage in conversation with him but...' she trails off and he can't help but mimic the furrow in her eyebrows at this.

'He can't speak?'

She blinks once, 'He can. He chooses not to.'

'Oh.'

'He has been given free reign to roam the campus now that the trial is over so you may see him around more often.'

He nods and wonders if that's why he hasn't seen them around since that day. 'Thank you for letting me know.'

'You're welcome,' she smiles and dips her head in farewell before turning to go back out the door.

'Wait!' He calls out before she leaves. She turns around to face him again, her eyebrows raised in curiosity. 'Do you...know? What happened with...' he tries to draw in a fortifying breath but it shakes going in, 'What happened with the other androids that were found in his house?' He asks haltingly and hates how much he's hesitating with it.

Chloe looks sad suddenly and he almost regrets asking it. 'There were a few that we could not help. Those that we could...we asked them what they wanted. Elijah offered to give them new bodies if it was something they wished.'

'They have new bodies now?' Connor asks and he catches the moment Chloe's LED starts to spin yellow repeatedly.

She shakes her head, lowering her eyes to the floor. 'They wished for the right to die. They wished for mercy.'

'O-oh...'

The numbness returns.

\---

Just as Chloe told him, he does start seeing the android more often. He thought he would be okay with it but he finds himself growing uncomfortable every time he catches sight of the other, at how much they resemble him.

The android, and it's now he realizes that he doesn't even know their name, they're quiet, not because they don't talk but because they kind of just fade into the background, blending into the hustle and bustle of the campus, hiding away, avoiding people and being unobtrusive, as if they don't want to be noticed.

Connor feels unsettled every time he spots the android, unused to the fact that there's someone out there who shares the same face as him.

Eventually, the others bring it up.

'Do you know his name?' Simon asks.

They're sitting outside in the courtyard, the weather finally mild enough that they can spend their breaks outside instead of being cooped up for long periods of time indoors. There's a large willow tree at the center of it, a highly coveted spot by many employees here at CyberLife. Today, they were lucky enough to snag it just as another group of colleagues are heading back inside to return to work.

Connor shakes his head in answer.

North scoffs, 'You got three guesses, and the first two don't count.'

Josh frowns, 'Have a little more tact, North. We can guess the obvious but they could've chosen another name for themselves.'

She huffs but looks visibly chastened.

'He caught me by surprise the other day,' Kara says softly as she pushes around the pieces of her fruit salad. 'I tried to talk to him, ask how he was doing but...he...'

He recalls Chloe telling him how the android doesn't talk.

'I--' Markus starts and stops, staring at the grass surrounding them and plucking at it, ignoring his lunch. 'I feel sorry for him.'

An uncomfortable silence falls over them and the rest of their lunch break is spent quietly talking to one another, carefully avoiding the elephant in the room. It takes almost the entire break before they settle back into their normal groove to share laughs with one another again.

They split off at the end of their lunch break to return to their respective departments: Markus, Kara and Simon going towards one direction, Josh heading off into another, while he and North keep walking together for a short while before taking different turns.

On the way back to his lab, his eyes catch on a familiar sight, like looking in a mirror or an odd feeling of déjà vu. Their eyes meet briefly before the android drops their gaze and keeps walking away and Connor can't help but think back on Markus' words, a feeling of guilt striking into him.

The android didn't ask to be made, didn't ask to be abused and taken advantage of, but now they're left behind to deal with the consequences and repercussions of being alive and stuck in a place with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Without thinking too much about it, Connor makes a detour and finds his way back up the main building, all the way to the top where the head offices are located. He sees Chloe and asks if he can arrange a meeting with Elijah Kamski through her.

'I understand he's busy,' he says and sees her LED start to spin a blue at a quicker rate. 'I'm happy to make an appointment for another time.'

'He's currently available,' she tells him and gestures to the door, leading him towards it. 'He'll see you now.'

'Oh,' he blinks, not expecting that, caught off-guard by it all. 'Thank you.'

Chloe smiles warmly at him as she grabs the door handle and pulls it open for him, 'No problem at all.'

Connor steps inside the room and sees the floor to ceiling windows, the plush red rug on top of the white carpet, at the large white crescent desk, sparsely decorated, a look that's aimed more towards minimalist than over-the-top.

'How can I assist you, Connor?' Elijah asks him as he turns away from one of the two monitors he has on his desk.

'The android that looks like me,' he starts to say, 'What's going to happen to him now?'

He blinks, 'Nothing,' he tells him as he leans back in his seat, 'We aren't holding him here against his will; he can choose to come and go as he pleases.'

'That's it?'

Elijah shrugs, 'I've made offers; compensation, an apartment, a fresh start if that's what he wanted.'

'And?'

'Nothing,' he repeats with another shrug, 'He simply turned around and left the room without another word.'

'Oh.' Connor furrows his eyebrows and wonders what he must be thinking of, if he feels like CyberLife is trying to buy his silence or if he's being pitied. Both scenarios equally worse in different ways.

'I would offer more, if he would simply voice it but I've been told that he's not spoken a single word since his confession to the crime all those weeks ago.'

 _He hasn't spoken since then?_ Connor thinks to himself and feels another jolt of guilt slam into him.

Elijah keeps talking, 'Chloe has attempted to keep him company but has refused her at every turn. She's quite saddened by this,' he says with an uncharacteristically small but fond smile on his face.

Connor turns to her and sees her concern, her LED swirling a gentle yellow, 'I want to help, but I can't help someone who doesn't want it, or isn't yet ready for it.'

'I see,' he says quietly as he drops his gaze to the floor and wonders if the android just doesn't know how to ask for it, how to talk about it, how to deal with it. He wonders if he's confused and hurting and overwhelmed and unsure. 'Thank you for your time,' he finishes finally and turns his attention back to Elijah, sees him incline his head towards him.

'Take care of yourself, Connor.'

He nods his head and walks out the office, hearing Chloe close the door behind him.

'Connor?'

He turns and is surprised to see Chloe behind him; he'd assumed she stayed in the office with Elijah. 'Yes?'

'He's struggling.'

He imagines that's putting it lightly, to have survived that place and that kind of ordeal while everybody else perished or cried to be put out of their misery. He can't imagine what the android must be going through, what he must be thinking and feeling.

'I think he's scared, and worried, and unsure.'

He's surprised by the way she's talking, her usual eloquence missing from her normal way of speaking, but he can hear her distress and her concern for the other. '...I would be, too,' he confesses quietly as he drops his gaze down to his shoes and wonders where he might be. 

'I appreciate you asking after him. That you care.'

He snaps his eyes back to her, 'You don't have to thank me for that.'

She shakes her head at him, 'There are many people who don't care for us, who would hurt us because they don't believe we can feel pain, that we're not alive in the same way they are, that we can be killed with no consequences.'

Connor thinks immediately of Zlatko and wonders what would've happened if he hadn't dithered so long reporting the harassment to HR, if the android would've been spared from being created in the first place. It's a foolish thought and it only fills him with more guilt.

'I'm glad you're not one of them,' she tells him and he frowns as he turns away from her, pushing the button to summon the elevator.

'Don't thank me for being the lesser evil. I'm not that good of a person, either.'

If he hadn't hesitated for so long, maybe they wouldn't be in this situation at all.

'You're better than you think you are.'

_I'm not._

He steps through the elevator doors once it opens and doesn't meet her eyes again, consumed by guilt and anger.

\---

Projects that had been waiting for approval are suddenly given the green light across several departments, including Connor's. He finds himself working longer hours, forgetting the time and working through lunch. His colleagues are much the same way but he still tries to spend time with them whenever he can pull himself away from work long enough to notice what time it is and how hungry he actually is.

Occasionally, as he walks through the campus, he catches sight of the android. Always just a small glimpse of him, like walking past a mirror and seeing his reflection from the corner of his eyes and not thinking twice about it. He feels bad for it and reminds himself to be a little more observant, to not ignore him, even if it's an accident.

He sees him as they're passing each other on the staircase and he tightens his grip on the handle so he doesn't trip and fall down the steps. He meets his eyes briefly but the android quickly averts his gaze and retreats away, keeping a careful distance between the two of them.

Connor watches him go, feeling another spike of guilt hit him. He wants to talk with him but knows better than to seek him out and crowd him, making him feel uncomfortable. If he's not receptive to Chloe, another fellow android, he's unlikely to be receptive to a human.

Work gets busy and he spends hours upon hours writing code and testing it, making sure it's up to standard and then switching over to doing quality control so he can keep his mind active and alert. 

Whenever he finds the time to seek out the others, they look equal parts tired and manic, caught up in discussions of trying to troubleshoot a problem together, talking about what went wrong and how they can go about fixing it. He enjoys being a part of it, being able to exercise his brain in a different way even if they all belong in separate departments.

The next time Connor sees the android he does a double-take; the android has changed his eye color from brown to grey and his hair is slightly longer, too, colored a darker shade of brown that looks almost black. He wonders if this is the android's attempt at separating himself from Connor so people don't look at him and immediately think of the human but as his own person instead.

He tries to catch his eyes but he keeps his gaze averted the entire time and Connor decides it would be better if he wasn't so blatantly watching him. He wonders if perhaps he doesn't want anything to do with him, to be reminded of who he was originally modeled after.

He pulls his eyes away from his retreating back.

Chloe was wrong; he's really no better.

\---

One of his plants is dying, the leaves rotting away. He plucks them at the stem and gently tries to find the source of the disease and sees that it's too late; the roots have already perished, spots of mold growing in the soil when he digs around with a small tool.

It's not the first plant he's ever lost but it's the first one he's lost out of negligence in a long time. He should've seen it sooner and stopped it from festering. There's nothing left of it he can save and it's more difficult than usual to throw the rotting plant and diseased soil into the trash, feeling like it's hitting him just a little bit harder.

He carefully washes the pot and leaves it aside to reuse again one day.

\---

By the time Connor pulls himself away from work it's already 3 in the afternoon and he feels famished. A quick glance at his phone tells him he's missed a few messages from Kara and one from North at 1:49PM that just says: _lol loser_. He snorts and rolls his eyes as he pulls out the packed sandwiches from his work bag and heads out of the lab.

It's sunny outside, with sparse clouds hovering in the sky and decides to take his lunch break outside instead of in the cafeteria like he might normally go. 

He sees Chloe at a junction as he walks through the corridors, sees her standing next to Elijah Kamski as he speaks to one of the head coordinators. He's not sure what they're talking about but he sees Chloe turn in his direction and he raises a hand to her in greeting. She smiles and mouths the word: _hello_ to him and he does the same before leaving them to it.

It's interesting; he'd never seen Elijah or Chloe in the first eight months since he started working at CyberLife but suddenly in the last few weeks he's starting to see them more and more often. He wonders if it's just him finally becoming more observant of his surroundings, or if it's maybe because he's not wholly focused on Zlatko's unwanted advances anymore.

He shakes the thought away as he steps through the doors leading into the courtyard, aiming towards the willow tree with its draping branches that sways with every breeze. It's relatively late in the day now with barely anyone around except for a lone person sitting on one of the benches. His steps falter when he gets close enough to realize it's the android, their eyes meeting briefly before the other drops his gaze to the grass by his feet. Connor unthinkingly raises a hand in greeting and sees the way the android's fingers curl into fists on top of his lap.

He makes himself keep walking until he's seated under the willow tree, mindful of the roots. He tries not to stare, knows it must be uncomfortable, and it's now he wonders if he should've left the courtyard to him but doesn't want him to feel as if he's being avoided.

He eats his lunch, pulling his phone out of his pocket to occupy himself with, hoping the android doesn't feel as if he's ignoring him. Connor tries to put himself in his shoes but honestly can't imagine what he must be going through, what he must be thinking, or feeling, how he must be coping.

Half an hour passes by before he lets himself look back up from his phone and he sees the android is gone. He gets up, brushing grass and dirt from his trousers before heading back inside to go through the last of his day's work.

\---

'Connor.'

He looks up at the familiar voice and sees the head of his department standing just inside the threshold leading into his room. He stands up to greet her, 'Hello, Amanda.'

'I see you're hard at work,' she says as she steps further in, looking around his work space before coming up to his desk, turning the monitor slightly to look at the screen.

'Yes,' he replies, unsure why she's here and what she's looking for. In all the months since he's worked here at CyberLife, he can count the meetings they've had face-to-face on just one finger. Most of the time, his orders come from one of the senior managers and the team leaders, not the head of the department. 'Is there anything I can do for you?' He asks and wonders if his coding work is up to her standards. He considers it to be clean and precise but wonders if it looks messy in her eyes.

She lets go of the monitor and turns towards him. 'I came across your doppelgänger just this morning. Elijah had told me what had happened regarding Zlatko.'

A shiver runs up his spine at the mention of his name and he doubts he managed to suppress it well enough from her. 'Yes,' he repeats, feeling like a broken record.

'How are you feeling?' She asks, folding her arms in front of her, gently holding her elbows in each hand. 'You must be quite distraught at seeing the evidence of Zlatko's...work roam around the campus.'

He swallows, feeling uncomfortable by her questioning but answers as honestly as he can, 'I'm more distraught by the fact that he thought he could create androids to look like Markus, Kara and myself just because he could.'

She hums, 'Yes, quite an unfortunate turn of events. He was a genius, but even geniuses have their downfalls.'

He doesn't know what she's trying to say, trying to imply. He stays silent.

Eventually, she turns to leave, 'Have a good day, Connor. I hope you'll be able to move past this.'

He watches her leave, suddenly feeling uneasy as he sits back down at his desk, pulling the monitor to face him again, eyes staring at the coding and wondering if it's missing something after all.

\---

It had been cloudy and grey when he'd left the apartment this morning on his way to work. He'd assumed it would remain that way for the rest of the day, maybe even turn into rain, but he's mildly surprised when he walks out into the courtyard to a cloudless sunny day. He joins the others at one of the many picnic tables set up around the place and sits down for a late lunch, listening to the others talk with the sun beating down on them.

'You've been busy,' North says as she tries to make an origami crane with a serviette. 'Or maybe you got yourself some new friends to hang out with, huh?' She finishes with a cheeky wink knowing that he's not that great at creating new connections.

He scoffs, 'Yeah, I spent an hour with them in the cafeteria before I remembered about you lot.'

'Oof,' she laughs and playfully nudges his elbow, dislodging the piece of chicken off his fork to fall back into his noodle salad. 'But honestly, though, you been alright? I know work's been kicking all our collective asses.'

He thinks back on the surprise visit from Amanda and decides it's not worth bringing up. Instead he just shrugs, 'It's busier than usual but otherwise not as bad as I was expecting.'

'Speak for yourself,' Josh says, looking haggard and sleep deprived but still smiling anyway.

Eventually, Kara is the first to get up and hurry back to work, and the others slowly start heading back to their respective departments as well until it's just himself and Markus left behind. He smiles, glad for the company as he finishes the last of his lunch, just catching up with one another.

There are less people in the courtyard now, just a few stragglers enjoying the last few moments of peace before returning to the normal hustle and bustle of working in a large company like CyberLife. It's now that he realizes he hasn't seen the android but he guesses he shouldn't be surprised by that; he seemed very private.

After a while they fall into a lull in the conversation and he sees Markus idly touching the wood grain of the picnic table, finger gently tracing the lines. Connor puts his empty lunch container aside and settles his arms on the table, enjoying the sun and the light breeze.

'Are you okay?'

Connor turns his attention to him, sitting up a little and wondering where the question is coming from. 'What do you mean?'

Markus meets his gaze briefly before looking somewhere behind him, 'I just realized I never really asked how you were coping with it, with...' he trails off but it's obvious what, or more accurately, _who_ he's referring to.

He shrugs, dropping his eyes back down to the table. 'He's dead, so I try not to let it bother me.'

'Yeah, he's dead, but we're still haunted by his ghost.'

Connor doesn't know if he's talking about Zlatko or if he's referring to the android that looks like him. He furrows his eyebrows, feeling uncomfortable.

'It's not his fault.'

Markus looks alarmed by his comment. 'No, I'm not blaming him for anything. He's just as much a victim as we are. I just wish we could move on and stop feeling like his specter is hanging over us, getting the last laugh.'

He closes his eyes and turns his face towards the sun, hoping the heat of it will sear out the memory of that man and cleanse him.

It doesn't work.

\---


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The road to recovery.
> 
> Or so we might hope for.

He likes going to the farmers' market in the weekend, likes the smells of the fresh baked breads, the gentle sweetness of flowers, the vibrant colors of the many fresh fruits and vegetables on display. He goes to the stalls he normally frequents, buying the things he needs and some others that he doesn't; some treats to reward himself with after a long, hard week.

His eyes catch on a plant as he nears another stall, the little bulbs of the succulent a soft pink and yellow. It's a short little thing with the leaves fat and almost bloated but it looks healthy and well-cared for.

Connor picks up the black plastic pot it's in and turns it around, looking at it from every angle. He can see new growth on the stem, coming out from beside some leaves and thinks it would be easy to propagate them if he wanted to.

The owner of the stall comes by with a smile and asks him, 'Hi! Found something that caught your eye?'

He returns the greeting with a smile of his own. 'Yeah, I have.'

\---

He gets caught up with work and doesn't manage to pull himself away until he feels and hears his stomach rumble loudly and he finally checks the time to see that it's nearly 3:30 in the afternoon and to remember that he skipped breakfast earlier because he'd accidentally overslept. His eyes are exhausted and he blinks rapidly to clear the sting that he's only now noticed from being too focused on the screen and from not taking enough micro breaks for his eyes to do a quick bit of recovery.

He pushes himself away from his desk after saving his work, pulling his packed sandwiches out of his bag for a late lunch break.

It's cloudy outside and the courtyard is empty so he takes a seat right under the willow tree, listening to the leaves rustle with the wind for a little bit before tucking into his food, occupying himself on his phone while he eats.

He makes himself stop at 4 o'clock so he can power through the last hour or so before leaving to go back to his apartment. He gets up, brushing the stray pieces of grass from his trousers and pauses when he sees the android sitting on one of the free benches.

The other has his eyes averted but Connor know his scans have probably noticed him, whether his optical units are focused in his direction or not. He brings a hand up in greeting and sees the android's hands curl into fists on top of his thighs, an obvious sign of discomfort even if his facial expressions don't reveal anything.

He tells himself to leave him alone and he quietly apologizes as he goes back to work. Still, he can't help but look back at him for a quick moment before re-entering the building, wondering if they'll ever share a conversation together or if it'll never happen because of their combined circumstances.

He's back at his room, his lunch container packed away in his bag to bring back home but he's barely sitting back down when he hears a knock at his door, surprised to see Chloe standing there. 

Connor's reminded of the time when she came by for a meeting that involved Elijah, two police officers of the DPD and an android that shares the same face as him. If it weren't for the smile on her face, he would be worried by her presence. As it is, he finds himself returning the smile as he saves his work again before focusing his attention on her instead.

'Hello, Chloe.'

'Hello, Connor. Are you busy?' She asks as she steps inside, looking around his space. Somehow, he's not nervous with her in his work room the way he was with Amanda, which strikes him as hilarious considering that Chloe works alongside the CEO of CyberLife.

He shrugs, 'No more than usual. Is everything alright?'

'Yes. I just wanted to visit.'

'Oh,' he says, surprised again. He gets up to offer her one of the empty chairs in the room which she happily takes. 'Any particular reason?'

She hums softly as she pokes at one of the hanging beads of the Newton's Cradle he has on his desk. He hardly ever uses it now; it's accumulated a thin layer of dust on top of it. 

'I guess I just wanted to spend time with someone who'll talk to me normally. Other than Elijah, everybody else is...different. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I'm the one who's different and they don't know how to react to that.'

'I see. Sorry you're stuck with just the two of us, then,' he teases a little bit and sees a grin appear on her face, making her seem more vibrant.

'It's not the worst company I've ever had,' she jokes and he can't help but laugh a little at that.

He ends up talking with her until after 6PM before they wish each other a good night.

'See you tomorrow?' She says as she stands by the door, her head turned towards him.

'I'll be here,' he nods and waves goodbye to her before packing up his things to go back to his apartment.

\---

That night he re-pots the succulent he'd bought at the farmers' market into the one that had been emptied out. He loosens the soil first, checks the roots, trims it just a little and adds in a little bit of fertilizer and small pebbles into the mix before re-potting it carefully. The soil is still moist so he doesn't give it any water just yet, lets the succulent acclimatize to the new environment first to make sure it'll take to it.

It's very pretty to look at, the pastel colored leaves soothing to his eyes. He places it carefully next to his other plants and likes the way they look next to each other.

He checks on his other succulents, too, and is pleased to see that they're all healthy and vibrant.

\---

He gets a burst of energy in the morning and hits a breakthrough, working through lunch until his eyes start stinging from looking at the screen for too long without taking enough micro breaks again. He blinks and turns to the Newton's Cradle on his table, pulls one bead away from the others and lets it fall, watching it go back and forth and back again for a short while before deciding to go out for a late lunch break.

As he makes his way to the willow tree, he checks his phone and sees a few texts from Markus and one from Kara that says: _Don't forget to eat, you silly-billy!_ He chuckles and steps over the threshold leading into the empty courtyard. He sits under the tree, enjoying the gentle breeze and the mild weather as he eats his beef stir-fry, letting his thoughts circle around some coding work that needs a bit of polishing for later on when he returns to his desk.

He makes the mistake of lying down on top of the grass, one arm pillowing his head as he stares up at the swaying leaves of the willow tree, at the little spots of sunlight that peeks through every once in a while, letting the calm feeling wash over him until he accidentally dozes off.

There's a jacket draped over him when he wakes up and it falls off him as he sits up to check his phone to find that it's nearly 5PM; he'd accidentally slept for nearly 2 hours. He grimaces, feeling guilty for sleeping on the job and looks down at the jacket piled on his lap.

It's a soft white CyberLife jacket, familiar, and he immediately knows it belongs to the android whose name he still doesn't know. He looks up to search for him but he's nowhere in sight. Feeling sluggish, he carefully folds the jacket up and takes it back into his work room with him, taking his time walking back just in case he bumps into him on the way there. 

He doesn't see him.

He stays for a couple of extra hours to make up for the impromptu nap and doesn't leave until just after 7 o'clock. 

Just as he switches the lights off, he looks back to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything. The jacket is hanging off the back of one of the chairs and he thinks about leaving it behind until the next time he sees the android, but he spots a couple of grass stains on it, and soft smudges of dirt.

In the end, he takes it back home with him so he can wash it before having it returned.

\---

'What's with the shopping bag? You got snacks for us?' North asks as she leans over Kara to peek inside only to scrunch up her nose in disappointment when she sees it's just a CyberLife jacket. 'Lame.'

He chuckles and decides not to mention that it belongs to the android. For now, at least. Instead, he just digs into his leftovers from dinner last night and changes the subject, asking them how they're going with their own projects, how it's coming along.

The cafeteria is not as loud or as busy as it usually is, a decent amount of the normal crowd having moved outside to the courtyard to take advantage of another nice and sunny day. A part of him is disappointed; he's getting a little stir-crazy from being stuck indoors for too long, just staring at his computer screen for hours upon hours with hardly a micro break in-between but he tells himself there's always next time. The willow tree isn't going anywhere, after all.

They catch up with each other for a while, just casually chatting, but it's not long before they each start heading back to work with the thought of how much they have left to do quietly looming over their heads. Despite this, he's surprised when Kara starts walking alongside him even though her department is in the other direction.

'So,' she drawls and he can't help the smile growing on his face when she's got that glint in her eyes. 'Whose jacket is that?'

'You don't think it could be mine?' He returns and dodges the elbow nudge aimed right at his gut.

'Not even remotely close to your style,' she teases and he supposes it could be true, although he's never worn anything that isn't business casual to work.

'How do you know that? We hardly ever meet up outside of work.'

She makes a loud dramatic sigh, 'Got me there.'

He chuckles and then quietly tells her, 'I accidentally fell asleep by the willow tree the other day and woke up with the jacket covering me. I'm pretty sure it belongs to him.' He still doesn't know his name but he hopes he's chosen a different name for himself, something wholly his.

It's been a few days since then, not including the weekend that passed, and he hasn't seen him around at all. He feels bad for having kept it for this long and Connor hopes he'll have something else to wear other than this jacket. Even if androids don't typically feel anything beyond temperature extremes, it's still nice to have some semblance of comfort.

'That's really sweet of him.'

Connor looks over at her and sees a small smile on her face, looking happy. It's now that he notices that she looks more at peace, too, and he's glad to see that she's able to move past what happened with them.

'It's a very kind gesture,' he agrees and is also quietly glad that she doesn't seem quite as subdued as before. 

Eventually, they come across a junction and choose that moment to part ways, waving goodbye to each other before continuing onward.

\---

Chloe comes by to see him again around 4 o'clock saying that she's bored, and he doesn't know why she'd come see him when he doubts he could really give her anything of real interest or entertainment. He wonders how an android that can process billions of exaflops per second occupy themselves in their free time, what kind of hobbies they keep, what sort of connections they make.

He asks her out of curiosity what she does when she's not at CyberLife and she tells him that she likes to go to antique stores and look around at what they have and if something catches her eye then she'll buy it and bring it back home.

'Does Elijah also go with you?' He asks and the image of her antique shopping with the CEO of CyberLife, a man who created the age of androids, spending time inside a dusty and fragile space makes him want to laugh.

She smiles at him, like she can almost read his mind, 'Sometimes, when I can pull him away from his projects.'

He chuckles, and they spend a little while longer just chatting to one another and sometimes he forgets that she's not actually a human. Then he asks himself why that distinction matters at all. He decides that it doesn't.

\---

He makes sure not to lie down under the willow tree again the next time he's out alone in the courtyard. He's mentally tired enough that he might actually doze off and he can't afford to take a nap in the middle of the day, not when it throws off his normal sleep cycle. Instead, he just busies himself on his phone, going through his personal emails and chat groups, browsing on a couple of apps to look at pictures and videos to relax a little before returning to his coding work again. 

He doesn't know what makes him look up, maybe a noise or a movement, and his eyes settle on the android in a dark turtleneck and jeans combo, sitting on one of the benches, his gaze focused on the ground and his hands laid on top of his lap.

Connor waves as he stands up, picking up the bag with the androids' jacket neatly folded inside of it and sees the other curl his hands into fists again. He pauses where he is and decides not to directly approach him.

He carefully walks to another bench nearby the android and sets the bag down. 'Thank you for your jacket,' he says quietly and tells himself not to feel discouraged when he gets no reaction from him. 'I've gone ahead and cleaned it for you. I'll just leave it here.'

He leaves him alone, doesn't stay behind to watch if it gets picked up or not, just starts making his way back to work.

Sometimes he wonders what the android must think of him, why he was created to look like this one human, what made him so interesting that he would be replicated over into an android. He wonders if the other must hate him.

He stops in the middle of the hallway, feeling inexplicably sad.

\---

Surprisingly, he starts seeing the android around more often: walking along the corridors, on the staircases, out in the courtyard, still quiet and unobtrusive but Connor notices that he doesn't avert his gaze as quickly or keep it focused on the ground, sometimes Connor actually has enough time to wave at him and he can see it with his own optical units instead of through his environment scans. Despite this, he still takes care not to approach him, to give him his space.

If he ever finds himself alone with the android out in the courtyard he tries to talk to him, just small pieces of conversations. Not necessarily to get him to speak or to engage in idle chatter but more just to show that he doesn't harbor any ill-will towards him.

One afternoon he'll say: 'The weather is pretty good today,' and leave it at that.

Another time he'll mention: 'The willow tree is my favorite place to sit when it's free.'

On a different day when he's on another late lunch break: 'I'm glad we have real grass instead of the artificial turfs. This feels a lot nicer to the touch, and softer to sit on.'

During a particularly warm day where he's got his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to provide some relief from the heat but is loathe to leave the shade of the tree to find shelter inside: 'You seem to like to sun, too. It's a good thing you can't get sunburnt,' he chuckles to himself and wonders if the android enjoys these small moments of conversation or if he's just putting up with it because he has no choice.

Connor tells himself the android wouldn't have stayed around if he found him to be a nuisance, or would've avoided him altogether if he felt overwhelmed or burdened by his presence. He finds it difficult to gauge how the other is feeling when he hardly shows any emotion, nothing but the curling of his fingers across his lap to show his discomfort. Even his LED has stayed consistently blue. The only time he'd seen it turn yellow was the first time they'd ever met.

He frowns at his computer screen and realizes it's been almost four months since that initial meeting. It doesn't feel like it was all that long ago but so much has changed since then, his whole life shifted in a way that had felt disorienting at first but now he's used to.

'Connor?'

He startles out of his daze, hands jerking away from the keyboard, and sees Chloe standing right in front of his desk. He hadn't heard her come in, he doesn't even know how long she'd been standing there for while his head had been up in the clouds.

'Chloe, hello,' he greets her belatedly and quickly saves his work. 'Sorry, my head has been...full, these days.'

She smiles reassuringly, 'It's alright. Work must be keeping you busy.'

He shrugs and goes to get her a chair even though androids don't tire from standing for long periods of time.

'So, what brings you over to my humble little room,' he asks and watches her poke at one of the beads of the Newton's Cradle before picking it up and letting it go.

She doesn't say anything for a while, just lets the clicking noise fill the silence for a moment before she turns to him and says, 'I'm glad you're spending time with Damian, despite everything.'

Connor looks at her in confusion; he doesn't know anybody by that name. He shakes his head, apologetic, 'Damian?'

Her LED spins blue for a moment before it calms again, 'The android that shares your likeness. Did he not introduce himself to you?' She asks with a small tilt of her head.

'No, we...we've not actually talked to each other. It's more like I talk within range of his audio processors and that's it,' and it's only after he says it out loud just how silly it sounds, how little effort he's putting into the interactions.

She blinks, 'Oh.'

He feels awkward suddenly and flounders for something to say. 'He spoke with you?'

'No, we interfaced,' Chloe tells him as she pulls back the skin from the fingertips down to the middle of her forearm, showing the white plastic chassis before reactivating it. 'He doesn't seem comfortable verbalizing his thoughts.'

It makes sense, especially after everything he's been through. 'It's good he feels more at ease with you now, though. And that he still has the option to interface with androids, at least.'

She sighs, but there's a small smile on her face. 'He's voiced his displeasure that he can't do the same with humans.'

He snorts, 'Trust me, if I could convey an idea or a suggestion across interface without needing to use words and such, I would be much happier, too.' He feels he could solve at least 50% of his problems if he could just _show_ what's on his mind rather than fumble his way through a conversation, trying to use words that feel so imprecise to get a specific point across.

Then an idea hits him.

'Would you be able to pass him my phone number?' He asks, feeling like he's been given an opportunity that he doesn't want to waste. 'Maybe he's not alright with talking but maybe he won't mind conversing via texting instead.'

He sees her LED spin blue and blink rapidly for a quick moment before she tells him with a satisfied nod, 'Done.'

Sometimes, he's jealous of how quickly and efficiently androids can complete their tasks. If an android were to take over his role, they probably would've been done with everything that's required of them within a week instead of a month.

'Thank you.'

'Thank _you_.'

He blinks in surprise, 'Me? What for?'

'You always treat us with respect. You have always been kind to us.'

'I...It's not difficult to show respect to others,' he says, reminded uncomfortably of one instance he would rather leave behind him. 'Regardless of whether they're humans or androids. It's just common courtesy.'

'Yes, and it means a lot to us, to be seen as equals,' she tells him, her gaze focused intently on him that makes him grow flustered. 

'Oh. I mean, uh, you're welcome.'

Chloe laughs quietly as she stands from her seat, 'I'll see you around, Connor.'

'Take care of yourself, Chloe.'

Her smile widens, 'I will. Now to take care of Elijah,' she waves as she leaves his room.

Usually he keeps his phone on silent and face down on the table to keep it from distracting him with new notifications while he works. Today, he decides to leave it next to him, wondering how their first conversation might start.

\---

Nothing happens, and he guesses he shouldn't be disappointed by that. A human did hurt him after all, and it's not out of the question that another human might do the same. Perhaps the android only feels comfortable around other androids because they're the same. He doesn't take offense to it; maybe texting isn't something he wants to do, either, but a part of him also wonders if maybe he just wants to be left alone.

Chances to meet up with his friends during lunch become more scarce as their combined deadline looms over them. He finds himself working through it most days, usually only meeting up with the others roughly once a week if he just so happens to check the time at the right moment.

He considers eating in his room but decides not to risk accidentally dropping food on his work station when he's always taken care to keep it clean and tidy. He's been able to keep his room bug-free and he wants to make sure it stays that way.

There's a couple of people in the courtyard, sitting on nearly opposite sides of the large communal space but the spot beneath the willow tree is free so he heads straight towards it and settles down by the roots. He browses his phone as he eats his chicken salad bowl, skewering pieces of sweet potato, carrot, spinach and chicken on his fork to get a taste of everything. The weather is a little bit cooler today, with the odd gust cutting right into the thin material of his dress shirt. He should've worn his jacket out with him but he decides a little cold won't hurt him for the half an hour he intends to spend out here.

His phone chimes with a new notification: a message from a long string of numbers he doesn't recognize. He opens it.

_I am surprised you would want to open communications with me._

He realizes it must be from Damian and he has his suspicions confirmed when he looks up and finds the other sitting on his usual bench, his hands on his lap and his gaze fixed on the ground. He raises a hand to wave and a piece of spinach flies off the tines of the fork onto the grass. Connor sees his fingers curl into fists and he looks away from the android to pick up the stray vegetable and leave it on the lid of the container to throw out later, the hand holding the phone already composing a reply.

_Why wouldn't I?_

A new message comes in within seconds.

_Because I was created by him to take your place._

Connor grimaces, uncomfortable at the thought of that man as he puts down his fork and starts poking at the screen of his phone.

_My dislike of him doesn't extend to you. I'm sorry if I made you feel that way._

_I am sorry for assuming._

He huffs a little, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smile as he sends back: _It's okay._

_My name is Damian._

_It's nice to meet you. I'm Connor._ He sends and then winces, realizing how stupid it is to say that when it's obvious the android would know his name. 

_I know. You can talk, if you want._

He looks up at Damian and sees that his gaze is still focused on the ground but Connor takes his word for it as he picks up his fork and starts poking around for more chicken, 'So, what do you do when you're not out here soaking in the sun?'

Despite the chill, spots of sun still shine through the clouds, occasionally lighting up the environment for a while until another cloud passes overhead.

His phone chimes a reply and he looks down to read it.

_Nothing. It is liberating, in a way._

He smiles. 'That's good. As long as you enjoy it.'

In the end, he spends nearly an hour before needing to return to his work. He's glad that Damian is comfortable enough to reach out to him and he hopes this marks the start of a tentative friendship.

\---

He points out a loaf of sourdough bread and pays for it, thanking the vendor before bringing the bag to his nose to breathe in the smell of it, squeezing it just a little to hear the crust crunch a little inside the paper bag.

The last place he has left to visit is the stall where he bought a succulent from previously, although he doesn't have any particular plans to buy a new one. He just likes to look at them.

His phone chimes in his pocket and he brings it out to see a message from Chloe with a photo of her hand holding up her new purchase: a set of antique keys, their natural shine dulled down from lack of use and from age. He chuckles and wonders what it is about antiques that she finds fascinating, but he supposes the same could be asked of his interest in succulents and plants.

He's about to walk away from the stall when his eyes catch on a black-leaf succulent near the bottom of the display, the center of it bright green darkening to deep brown with hints of red along the edges of the leaves. He takes a photo of it and sends it to Chloe with a message saying: _I told myself I wouldn't get anymore but here I am._

He buys it from the seller and decides to leave the farmers' market before he gets tempted into making another purchase he doesn't need, carefully juggling his bags of groceries and a potted plant.

A new message comes through but he decides not to check it until he gets home, mindful of everything that he's carrying. He only looks at his phone once he's put away his groceries and is sitting in front of his plant collection, setting the new addition next to the others.

 _I have the perfect pot for it_ , the text says and the image following it shows what looks like an iron bronze pot shaped like a lotus flower. It also looks very expensive and he doubts it's supposed to be used as a pot for plants.

_Somehow I doubt holding plants is its intended use._

_You don't know that._

_I don't, that's true, but I can only assume._

_Well, I think your echeveria black prince would look beautiful in this pot. I'll bring it on Monday._

He chuckles, _He would certainly stand out amongst the others._

_He is a prince, after all._

He laughs, and gently touches the tip of the black colored leaf, feeling the point of it under his finger, surprisingly sharp.

_Send me a photo of your collection?_

Connor smiles as he sits a bit further back and turns his phone sideways so he can get a view of all of his plants on the same picture. He sends it to her and, without thinking too hard about it, sends it to Damian as well.

\---

Once, as he's walking out to the courtyard for another late lunch, he sees Damian sitting at his usual bench and gives him a wave hello. His phone chimes immediately and he opens up the message to see a wave emoji that makes him trip over his own feet, laughing. It's not until he's sitting down under the willow tree that he sees the smallest hint of a smile on Damian's face and he's absurdly glad he's opening up to him, showing this side of himself that maybe very few are allowed a glimpse of.

He feels thankful.

\---

Chloe sometimes takes to visiting him during the day while he's at work, ranging from just a few minutes or nearly an hour. She never minds when he has to work while they chat and sometimes he wishes he could multitask better; he occasionally finds himself losing his train of thought while he's trying to talk and do coding work at the same time.

She laughs and teases him when he has to undo the last thing he wrote because he accidentally typed what he said instead of actual lines of code. He huffs and decides to leave multitasking to other people who are more capable at it than he is, saving his work and telling himself he'll get back to it later when he can give it his full attention.

One day she asks him, 'Has Damian contacted you yet?'

'Yes, he has.'

'What do you talk about? If you don't mind my asking.'

He shrugs as he picks up the Newton's Cradle and tries to dust it off with his hands, 'It's mostly just small talk; the weather, what I did in the weekend, my plant collection. He doesn't...really have much to say and it doesn't seem like he's ventured outside of CyberLife much.'

Chloe hums softly and waits for the Newton's Cradle to be settled back on the desk before she picks up a bead and lets it go, listening to it click and clack against each other back and forth. 'I tried to ask if he'd like to come with me to go antique shopping before but...he didn't seem interested, or perhaps, he's not yet ready to leave the safety of this campus.'

'I see...' he trails off and wonders if he feels trapped here or if he feels the outside world is just too full of hidden dangers. He doesn't blame him for choosing to remain in this one place that has given him any semblance of security but it feels so limiting. He wonders if perhaps that's why he likes to spend time in the courtyard because it's one of the few natural places to go to within this area he's confined himself to. 'What do you talk about with him?'

'I show him all the antiques I've collected, and sometimes I show him the memories of the shops I visit.'

He smiles, feeling jealous of not having that ability for himself. 'Nice. Wish I could do that.'

'It's very convenient,' she winks and then her LED starts blinking and cycling blue and she tells him she has to go and make sure Elijah eats his lunch before he disappears too far deep into the rabbit hole of being a CEO of a trillion-dollar company to remember basic necessities that a human body needs.

He huffs but waves her off, deciding to take a lunch break for himself to catch up with the others before returning to work.

He finds North and Simon in the cafeteria, chatting amongst themselves, and he joins them at the table just as North is recounting her last visit at the gym how this guy tried to show her proper lifting techniques, never mind the fact that she works there as a personal trainer on a casual basis and has an actual degree in sports science.

'Even had the guts to ask for my number after that,' she scoffs as she stabs a fork into what looks like chicken rice pilaf.

Simon quietly laughs and greets Josh when he also joins them at the table.

'Oh, boy. What happened this time?' Josh asks Simon when North continues to poke aggressively into her lunch, grumbling under her breath.

He shrugs, unconcerned, 'You know, just men at the gym being men.'

'Ah, gotcha,' he nods in understanding. 'You teach him a lesson?'

She snorts, 'I would, but he'd be too dumb to get it.'

It prompts another laugh from Simon, louder this time, and Connor can't help but shake his head even as he smiles at them.

\---

He thinks about Damian as he's leaving CyberLife to go back to his apartment and turns around to look back at the tower, hoping that one day the android will feel confident enough to leave the campus to explore what the rest of Detroit has to offer. He hopes Damian will take up on Chloe's offer to go shopping for antiques one day and he wonders if he should make an offer like that as well, take him to the farmers' market and show him all the stalls that he likes to visit.

Maybe he'll work up the courage to ask in the future but it doesn't seem like a good idea to try at the moment, not when everything still feels too new and too tentative between the two of them. He doesn't want to try pushing for more than Damian can bear to give.

 _Will you let me know if Damian one day decides to take you up on your offer?_ He texts Chloe as he's taking the bus back home.

 _You'll be the first to know_ , she returns to him within seconds and he smiles, feeling at ease.

\---

He sees Damian out in the courtyard as he's making his way towards the willow tree. He waves in greeting and is surprised when the other meets his gaze and slowly raises a hand up to return the gesture.

'Hi,' Connor smiles and hears the chime of his phone.

_Hello._

\---

Deadlines start looming ever closer and Connor starts feeling the crunch for time even though he's been diligent about keeping up with his own workload. Suddenly, last minute additions need taking care of, changes that need implementing, work that needs double and triple checking before putting it through for final submissions.

He finds himself staying a couple of extra hours just to make sure everything is up to snuff, that he's put it through the testing it needs and that it passes all of the check-marks before feeling comfortable about loading it up into the CyberLife servers. He's confident with his work but he's still young and he's still learning compared to the many other senior staff on hand.

He might be finished with his side of the work but there are still many other aspects of the project that he needs to contribute in to make sure the whole team finishes together.

It's late when he finally leaves his room and the sun has already set when he passes a window overlooking the city of Detroit, skyscrapers and buildings already lit up to color the night sky with all the CyberLife buildings doing the same thing, the main tower being the brightest point of them all. He can see it from where he's standing and he can see shadows moving about on the topmost floor and he wonders if it's Chloe or Elijah.

There's another figure on one of the higher levels standing still, backlit by the light from inside the room and Connor wonders if it's Damian watching the city or looking up at the sky. He wonders if his optics can pick out the stars even though there's too much light pollution to see it with the human eye.

There are still people walking about the campus, possibly on the way out, too, or perhaps putting in some extra hours like him, or maybe as part of the night shift. The figure could be anybody, doing the exact same thing he is, just standing by the window and people-watching for a while.

He pulls himself away and makes his way back home.

\---

He gets so used to seeing Damian out in the courtyard by his usual bench that he's caught off-guard when he doesn't see him one day. He thinks nothing of it at first; maybe he's preoccupied with something else, but it's not until a full week goes by where he doesn't see Damian at all that he decides to get in contact with Chloe to check if everything is alright.

She replies to him immediately, _He's going through a difficult time right now. Maybe you can let him know you're also thinking of him?_

 _I will. Thank you for letting me know_ , he returns to her and then spends several minutes trying to think of a proper response, unsure if he should start it like he would a normal conversation or if he should just ask if they're alright or not. In the end, after dithering for a while, he sends this: _Chloe told me you're not feeling well. I won't pretend to understand what you're going through but if you feel like you'd like someone else to talk to, I'm here._

He's not surprised when he receives no answer and a part of him grows worried for the android but decides to leave it up to him to make contact whenever he's ready.

It's been half a year but he wonders if it feels like no time has passed at all for Damian, especially if he can recall every excruciating detail of his time in that house.

He doesn't want to think about it.

\---

The department meeting goes on for longer than it's supposed to and everybody gets the fright of their lives when Elijah Kamski sits in to observe the proceedings about halfway through. By the time it's finished it's nearly 3 o'clock and Connor feels like his head is spinning just a little bit but he's thankful he's gotten into the habit of recording the meetings in case he misses key points.

He takes his data pad out with him to the willow tree to review the video and to get some fresh air at the same time, typing up some notes as he watches it, fast-forwarding some bits that he felt isn't relevant to him and replaying sections that he thinks is important.

He's leaning over the data pad so he doesn't notice someone coming up to him until a long shadow falls over him and he looks up to see Damian approaching him, sitting on the grass nearby.

'Hey,' he smiles, 'How are you?'

Damian shakes his head in reply, his eyes averted, and Connor's phone remains quiet.

'It's okay if you don't want to talk,' he reassures as he sets his data pad aside. 'Want me to tell you about what I did in the weekend?' That gets him a subdued nod and he smiles again as he starts talking about the farmers' market and how supermarkets just pales in comparison to some of the fresh produce and goods they have there. He talks about how he's come to know some of the vendors by name, finding out bits and pieces of their lives from weekly chats that usually only lasts as long as it takes for him to pick something and pay for it before they have to move on to serving other customers. He talks about the stall that sells succulents and how he was almost tempted into getting another one.

'I'm running out of places to put them. Sooner or later I won't even be able to look outside my own window anymore,' he laughs to himself and sees Damian reaching out to him with a soft touch, his synthetic skin pulling back to reveal the white of his chassis, blue lines pulsing softly in an attempt to interface with him. 'Damian?'

The hand gets pulled back quickly and Connor sees his LED turn to yellow and flare red once before Damian gets up and retreats, hurrying away.

Connor calls for him and stands to follow but ultimately decides against it, especially if he's already feeling overwhelmed. He sends an apology but gets no reply.

In the end, he picks up his data pad and returns to his room, trying his best to concentrate on his work and only being marginally successful on that front.

\---

He doesn't see Damian for a long time and he gets no reply for any of the messages he sends. Eventually, he decides to get in touch with Chloe again over waiting for her to come by to his room on a random whim. Her reply doesn't come as quick as it usually does and that alone worries him.

_Damian is trying to come to grips with some things about himself. Please be patient. Please keep doing what you're doing. He just needs time._

_Thank you for telling me_ , he replies to her and decides to proceed as he normally would.

He keeps sending messages, sometimes just silly little things he might've seen on his commute to and from work and the occasional photo of his plants. Once he sends a photo of a potato that looked like it had a grumpy face.

Sometimes he wonders if his messages help but through it all, he never asks or demands anything in return.

\---

He bumps into Chloe as he's leaving his room for lunch and he startles a little bit, almost dropping his packed sandwiches.

'Oh, you're off to lunch, then?' She asks, not at all caught off-guard by the near crash. 'I forget this is usually the time people have lunch. Elijah tends to have his much later.'

'Well, to be honest, I usually do as well. I only ever manage to have lunch around this time roughly once a week, if that,' he tells her and starts walking towards the cafeteria to see if any of the others are there yet or if they've relocated to the courtyard.

'I see,' she says as she falls into step with him.

'How are you? I imagine you must be quite busy keeping up with Elijah and the dozen meetings we seem to be having nearly every week now,' he says as they round the corner leading into the main corridor

'It can get quite busy but the fun thing about being an android is that I don't need to be in the same room as everybody else to get my job done,' she tells him with a cheeky smile, prompting a laugh out of Connor.

As they keep walking through the building, it starts getting busier with the lunch crowd gathering in the communal areas of the campus, the soft background chatter of several conversations going on at once building up in volume as they draw nearer.

He sees Kara and Josh coming in from the other side of the main lobby and waves when he catches their eye then turns to Chloe, 'Would you like to join us? Sometimes we go out into the courtyard if there's space available outside.'

She smiles, 'Thank you for the offer but I should go and make sure I have everything ready for a meeting Elijah will be attending at 1 o'clock. Perhaps I should also make sure he eats before then.'

'Good idea. The meeting we had the other day went for twice as long than expected. I'll see you next time?'

'You certainly will. Have a good lunch!' Chloe waves as she walks away, going towards the main CyberLife tower.

He meets up with Kara, Simon and Josh, and notices North coming up behind them, too. He nudges his head towards the courtyard. 'Want to see if any tables are free outside?'

'Sure, but first thing's first; when did you get comfortable with the CEO's PA?' Simon asks curiously, his eyes looking behind Connor's shoulder where Chloe must still be within view.

'Oh, uh...' he thinks back to how their friendship formed and he can't really pinpoint where it all started. He thinks it might've been when he started asking after Damian instead of brushing what happened under a rug to be forgotten. 'A few months ago possibly?'

'Ooh, so that's the new friend you hang out with on the regular now, huh?' North teases and Connor finds himself growing hot under the collar which only serves to make her smirk turn into a cackle.

Kara elbows North right in the waist as she smiles at Connor, 'We're allowed to have other groups of friends, too. Thankfully, you haven't met them yet.'

'I feel betrayed,' she says dramatically then turns to Markus, 'Do you have other friends I don't know about?'

'None at all,' he says with very wide eyes that speaks of obvious lies.

'I definitely have a friend named West. I'm waiting for a South and an East, too,' Josh says with a straight face and Simon ends up snorting very loudly, dodging the hand swipe coming his way.

Connor sighs and shakes his head at their antics but can't help smiling along with them anyway.

\---

He's on his way out of the CyberLife campus when he decides to take a roundabout way and pass the courtyard on the way out, not particularly expecting to see Damian but is pleased to catch sight of him sitting on his usual bench anyway. Connor rushes a little bit down the stairs but slows when he gets nearer to approach carefully even though he's aware his presence would've been noticed from the environmental scans.

'Damian, hey,' he greets softly and stops by the bench a few short feet away from him.

He watches Damian's LED spin rapidly between yellow and blue repeatedly for a few moments and he's about bid him goodnight and give him his space back when Damian stands up and turns towards him, raising a hand towards him with the synthetic skin deactivated.

Connor isn't sure what to do but mimic the movement even though he can't interface or connect to an android.

Damian's eyes are averted, focused somewhere in the middle of Connor's chest, and there's a quiet look of anguish on his face as his LED blinks alarmingly between yellow and red and Connor's phone starts chiming with messages coming in. It keeps going and he starts to get worried when the LED stays on red for several seconds before Damian eventually lets go as if burned.

Carefully, Connor lowers his hand and pulls out his phone, keeping his eyes on Damian and the LED and doesn't tear his eyes away until it cycles back down to yellow. Damian doesn't leave and he sees over 30 messages on his phone sent within microseconds of each other. A part of him is worried about what he might find but he knows it probably took a great deal of courage for Damian to send them to him in the first place so he unlocks his phone and starts going through them.

_I hate him._

The first one makes him suck in a quick breath, and the ones after that make him shake.

_I hate that I was created._

_I hate that he's dead._

_I hate that I can still feel him even though he's been dead for months._

_Inside my head._

_Inside my body._

_I can't stop thinking about him._

_The things he said to me._

_The things he did to me._

_I want to delete him from my memory_

_but I don't want to lose myself_

_but I feel like I'm losing myself regardless_

_I hate that he's still taking things from me even though he's gone_

_I hate that I can't enjoy my time with you because all I can hear is his voice saying your name_

_He worshiped you_

_He loved you_

_He made me feel dirty_

_Disgusting_

_Worthless_

_Vile_

_I hate that I was made to look like you_

_your eyes_

_your body_

_your voice_

_your name_

_for the longest time I hated you_

_for the longest time I thought you hated me too_

_but you never treated me poorly_

_you were kind_

_gentle_

_patient_

_i feel undeserving_

_i want to die_

'Damian, _no_ ,' he panics, reaching out unthinkingly and sees him flinch, his LED turning back to red and flashing in warning. Connor pulls back and takes one stumbling step away from him, hands on his head and pacing, trying to sort out his mind. 'I'm sorry,' he says but it's not enough. 'I'm so sorry. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry it's _still_ happening to you. I'm sorry you're going through this and I'm sorry I can't even do anything to help you.'

He can't look at them and it's now that he realizes how horrible it must've been to see him, that Damian can't ever escape the memory of Zlatko because of everything he is. He's angry suddenly, at himself and at a dead man.

'It must be so...fucking _agonizing_ to see my face all the time, to know that he wanted you to look like me so he could--so he--' he chokes and feels his whole body shake in anger and frustration and hatred.

He makes himself stop; it's not about him.

He swallows and turns away, 'I sh--I should go. I'm sorry.'

His phone stays quiet and the silence is deafening.

\---

He buries himself with work and he either eats his lunch out in the hallway or skips it entirely. He passes on all invitations from his friends to join them in the cafeteria or out in the courtyard, citing a busy work schedule which isn't false but isn't entirely true either. He hardly leaves his room except to go to meetings or to go back to his apartment and, worst of all, he doesn't get anymore messages from Damian.

He tries to stop thinking about it but the more he tries not to, the more he actually does.

Chloe finds him, knocking loudly on the door frame, and there's a stern expression on her face that melts away upon seeing him.

'You look awful,' she says quietly as she walks up to his desk.

He looks away from her, 'I don't want to talk about it.'

She doesn't push, and he's grateful for that. 'Would you like some company anyway?'

His fingers tap idly on top of the keyboard. 'I'm not very good company at the moment,' he tries to smile but it falls flat.

'I don't mind,' she says as she takes up a seat next to his desk and picks up the Newton's Cradle, setting it on top of her lap and gently swinging it from side to side as she swivels on her chair.

He watches her from the corner of his eye for a short moment before returning to work, thankful for her quiet presence even as he mentally prepares himself for the moment she'll, no doubt, bring up the elephant in the room.

It's quiet for long enough he gets lulled into a false sense of security before she quietly drops the bomb on him.

'He misses you.'

His fingers freeze over the keyboard and wonders how that's possible; his phone has been silent since that day and he's done nothing to change that. He'd felt justified in using the excuse that it's not up to him to reach out to Damian, especially after what happened with their last conversation. Still, it sounds oddly weak to his ears as he says to Chloe, 'He hasn't texted me.'

'He wants to see you but you haven't been out to the courtyard in nearly two weeks.'

He avoids her gaze, 'I thought he'd want space, especially after...everything,' he finishes lamely.

'And he's thankful for that, but he still wants to see you anyway,' she jumps in to reassure him and he feels unworthy of it.

' _Why_?' He asks, anguished as he finally turns to meet her gaze, 'Why would he? I'm a reminder of the worst moments of his _life_.'

Her LED turns yellow and she looks pained, 'That's not your fault. And it's not his fault, either.'

Connor looks away from her and tries to squash the ugly feeling building up inside of him even as he tells her quietly, '...I'm glad he's dead.'

He never thought he'd be the kind of person to hate someone so thoroughly, to be thankful their life has been cut short and that they no longer walk this earth among them. He never thought he'd be the kind of person to hope they'd died a painful death and suffered for every minute of it.

'I hope the both of you can move on, and leave him behind,' she says softly and her voice cuts through the ugliness inside of him but not enough to make him feel better about himself.

'...Thank you,' he makes himself say it anyway, even if he's not sure he'll be able to.

\---

Despite Chloe's last visit, it still takes him a couple of days to muster up the courage to find Damian again, and it takes him several hours to talk himself into seeing if he's in the courtyard, convincing himself on the way there that maybe Damian won't even be sitting by his usual bench and he can just go back to his room telling himself that at least he tried.

He was right; Damian isn't sitting at the spot he's come to take for himself. Instead, Connor sees him sitting right under the willow tree.

Their eyes meet from across the way and Connor feels accountably nervous as he walks towards him and watches as Damian rises to his feet just as he reaches the shade of the tree.

He doesn't know what to say, or do, and he averts his gaze, wishing he has the ability to interface so he can just communicate everything that he's feeling and thinking in one quick exchange of information.

A part of him regrets coming out here.

He catches movement from the corner of his eye, the motion of Damian raising his hand with the synthetic skin retracting only for him to pause and drop his arm back down to his side, the skin returning to normal.

Connor swallows his nerves and slowly raises his own hand instead, waiting, even though he knows interfacing doesn't work between humans and androids.

Eventually, Damian takes hold of his hand, his human skin receding to reveal the white plastic chassis beneath it.

The blue lights visible between the seams of the chassis pulses softly, a sure sign that a connection is being attempted. He wonders what Damian must be thinking of but his phone remains quiet in his pocket, never chiming once with an incoming message.

The silence eats away at him until he finds that he can't hold it anymore.

'I'm sorry...' it feels pathetic and doesn't even show the depth of his true thoughts and feelings, lacking substance.

He feels Damian tighten his hold, squeezing once. 'I don't want us to be sorry anymore.'

It's his voice but also not, with a slightly difference cadence to it, a soft seriousness. Connor's eyes widen in surprise upon hearing Damian speak to him, and all he can do is blink at him in shock.

Damian squeezes his hand again. 'I don't want us to be sorry for who you are and what I am anymore.'

'But--' he starts to say but stops when Damian shakes his head and looks down at their joined hands.

'I'm thankful to have met you,' he says quietly.

It's unfair, Connor can't help but think, to be the one that's receiving comfort when he was supposed to be the one to comfort Damian instead. It's pathetic, he can't help but think, to feel so hopelessly lost as he drops to his knees, the tears building up in his eyes without him realizing. He's ashamed and he can't help but want to hide his face behind a hand when he sees Damian slowly drop to his knees in front of him, squeezing his hand again in reassurance.

'We were both made into victims,' Connor hears Damian say softly to him, 'And we can both heal together from this.'

He feels Damian's other hand touch his shoulder and gently pull him forward into a hug. He doesn't know how he came to be here but he's glad he's not alone as he returns the gesture.

The world keeps turning and he's going to have to do his best to turn along with it, but he's satisfied for now, kneeling under the shade of the willow tree with the grass beneath them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A part of me wants to dip my toes in the RK800/RK900 pairing but at the same time, I find it hard to write pairings now. ='D If I did, it would probably be a hecckin slow and nearly non-existent burn. Hahah~
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for taking the time to read the story! Hope you enjoyed it even though it didn't quite end on a super high and happy note but it's a positive end with signs of personal recovery for everybody involved and that, to me, is good~

**Author's Note:**

> ='D Sobs to everyone. Except Zlatko, he can go die. Oh wait, he did!! Huzzah~ Soz, not soz.
> 
> Hope you guys liked the first chapter! And hopefully you'll stick around for the next one, too~ I'll also update the tags list as we go. It just depends on how far I diverge away from my draft. Hahahaha~~


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